1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a system and method for displaying data specified by a user. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and method for accessing and displaying data using a mobile display apparatus. The displayed data is accessed as a function of user selections and/or the location of the display apparatus.
2. Background Discussion
Generally, advertisers attempt to reach a maximum number of potential purchasers when displaying advertising material. Many types of media and venues are used to attract potential purchasers, or customers. Some conventional media include, for example, television, radio and billboards. With the advent of the Internet and mobile handheld devices, advertisers are able to selectively target potential customers. Advertisements in the form of pop-up windows, “spam” (i.e., unsolicited and/or unwanted e-mails sent to an email account) and other electronic or Internet transmissions to potential purchasers are common-place.
Furthermore, advertising data can be specifically targeted to a potential customer based on profile data or other known information about a customer's purchasing habits or interests.
For example, one example of Internet advertising is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,804,659 issued to Graham et al., which relates to an Internet target marketing system for distributing online advertising to viewers based upon the viewers' interests. The system uses an “n-way” matching of users' concepts of interest, advertisers' concepts and concepts contained in a currently viewed document to target advertising to the viewer of the current document. Contextually sensitive advertisement for each page viewed in a browser may be used, thereby associating an advertisement with every page in a document. This method can also include comparing the user concept relevance and the advertiser concept relevance for the document to determine an overall relevance. The advertisement selected can be displayed to a user. This patent is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety herein.
It is also known in the art that data, such as advertising data, may be inserted into a display device using the Internet. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,826,594, issued to Pettersen relates to a method for inserting dynamic content into a web page, using a dynamic content code embedded in the web page. The dynamic content code is used to access a program file on a dynamic content host computer that is run to generate the dynamic content based upon an identification code. The look and behavior of the dynamic content is defined by a plurality of content display attributes that can be modified. The dynamic content can be varied according to a content modification level and can include a run-time modified content. Multiple dynamic contents can be included within a single web page, and one dynamic content code can be embedded in multiple web pages. The dynamic content code can contain potential revenue links, and such links can be dynamically updated.
Thus, while conventional data display apparatus exist, it would be an advancement in the state of the art to have a display apparatus that dynamically displays data as a function of user selections and/or the location of the display apparatus.